


Ten Years

by Multifandom_damnation



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Episode Related, Family Feels, Gen, Introspection, Missing Scene, No Dialogue, Protective Siblings, Sad with a Happy Ending, Short & Sweet, Sibling Love, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-24
Updated: 2020-05-24
Packaged: 2021-03-03 10:27:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,735
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24349504
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Multifandom_damnation/pseuds/Multifandom_damnation
Summary: Calliope can't believe that she's been frozen in stone for ten years and that everything she knew has changed
Relationships: Caduceus Clay & Calliope Clay, Caduceus Clay & Clay Family
Comments: 2
Kudos: 113





	Ten Years

**Author's Note:**

> I fucking LOVE the Clay fam. Like. So damn much. This didn't turn out the way I wanted and it's actually not too great but I hope you enjoy it anyway.

Calliope Clay had left the Blooming Grove with the intention of finding her parents, healing her home, and being the hero. 

Ambitious, she knew, but what else did she have but her ambition? Her home was dying. All the adults in her family had ventured out to embark on the quest given to them by the Wildmother. It was up to her now, to fix it, to help. She didn’t worry about the Grove. Caduceus would take care of it, as he always did. He had a knack for the plants and the birds and the bugs that lived there. She knew that no matter what happened, their home would thrive in his care. Well, as well as it could, while it was dying before their eyes.

It didn’t matter, because she would come home, and she would save it. She would find her parents along the way, and they would all return together. Their home would be saved, and they could continue on with their lives and their duties and their worship and no longer have to worry about plant rot and mutated animals that sometimes found their way through the gates.

And she’d almost done it, too. She’d collected the residuum and submerged it in the flame at the temple of Dust and she’d even found her parents on the way, and she led them, with the Wildmother’s guidance, to the temple of Stone. And she had been so sure, so confident that she would succeed, with her parents there to watch her, and then they could finally go home.

One night she was setting up camp with her father while her mother and Aunt Corrin returned from their walk along the beach, examining the statues and searching for survivors when an almighty roar echoed from the jungle and a huge, metal-pated behemoth charged through the trees and onto the beach, green smoke billowing from its nostrils, it’s tusks glinting dangerously in the moonlight. It turned towards her mother and Aunt with a snarl, and they were enveloped by the green mist. Once it cleared, they stood there, hand in hand, frozen in stone. Her father tried to lift her, tried to pick her up from the ground as she screamed for her mother. She wanted to go to them, wanted to help them, wanted to fight away the creature and get her family to safety, but then she slipped in the dirt and winced at the pain as her father caught her before she hit the ground, and she turned just in time to see the shining beast prowling towards her and then-

And then she was looking up into the concerned, familiar eyes of Caduceus, the brother who was never supposed to leave the Blooming Grove, with a hand on her face and a slow smile spreading across his lips. 

He looked so different yet so similar. His hair was longer, and a different hue than it used to be, lighter and duller, like the colour had been stripped from it. His eyes were sadder, distant. He stood straighter and held himself with a new kind of confidence, his grip on his staff sturdier like he had gotten used to it. He had grown into his long, gangly limbs, and stood over her to a point that was infuriating. He was covered in more scars than she could actively count, faint white lines that marred his flesh and cut through the fur on his arms, the armour she had made him was dented and scratched, like it had seen too many battles. She hated the sight of it. Caduceus didn’t have scars. He shouldn’t have them.

There was something distant about him as if he was trying to keep them at arm’s length. Ten years, she couldn’t believe it. It felt like just yesterday that her father was wrapping his large arms around her, her mother was placing a kiss on her head, Aunt Corrin was running a tender hand down her face. But that wasn’t right. That was ten years ago, though it only felt like seconds. Ten years of her life gone, as she was literally frozen in stone. 

There were so many statues, so many people who had suffered the same fate as they had. Inside, they find more lost souls, more members of the Stones, more family members. Inside the cave, frozen in a perpetual state of fear and anger, they discover Clarabelle and Colton, holding onto each other, Colton brandishing his weapon as if trying to protect her from the arriving beast that Collipe knew from experience he wouldn’t stand a chance against. Caduceus told them he would wake them in the morning, after a rest and the recovery of the magic that vibrated at his fingertips, and Collipe had to be OK with that. Aunt Corrin was still stone, still frozen in a perpetual state of time, locked away in the mystical vault of one of Caduceus’s friends, like being put in a pocket. They had assured her she would be safe, but Collipe wasn’t willing to trust them too far. But Caduecus said it was OK. Caduceus would know. He was very wise.

That night, they slept at the base of her sibling’s statues, curled up in a tight circle around the cool, unmoving stone. They looked exactly the same as they had when she left the Grove,  _ ten years ago _ , and she wondered how long after she left did they follow after.

When she was lulled by her parent’s gentle snoring surrounding her and the faint giggling of Caduceus’s new friends, she crept away from the group and the comfort of their touch to find somewhere a little quieter, a little more isolated. She came across a pool filled with clear, glistening water, and she sat on the edge with her feet in the water as she twirled the residuum crystal over in her fingers. It was beautiful, and she knew the purpose it would serve, but she couldn’t help but hate it for what it had done.

Everything was different now. Caduceus was older, and wiser, though that was a hard thing to believe. Her little brother had always been wise for his years, wiser than the rest of them, anyhow. He knew better than to leave the Blooming Grove while the rest of them wandered off on a quest that cost them ten years of their lives. He seemed battle-hardened, his eyes held a haunted look to them, and he held himself with a different kind of strength. Where did her brother go, the one who would cry whenever a bug was smashed and relished in spending time in the kitchen while he helped their mother cook? The brother who couldn’t fight to save himself, who was never strong enough to hold a weapon in his trembling grip, who needed a staff just to walk when she once broke his knee? Where was the Caduceus who smiled when he teased them and laughed when he pranked them? Where did her brother go?

Deep down, she knew that he was gone, just like those ten years of her life were gone. She didn’t feel it, but she knew that it was true. How did he survive, ten years of isolation in a home that was rotting away before his very eyes? Did he ever think to go after then sooner? Did he think that they forgot him?

Calliope didn’t think she could live with herself if, after all these years, Caduceus thought that they abandoned him. His family, the people who were supposed to love him unconditionally and keep him safe and comfortable. If he had thought that they left him with the intention to never return…

She couldn’t think about that. All she wanted to do was wrap him in her arms and never let him go, but they weren’t that kind of family. Besides, he had this own family now, a new family, one made of misfits and colour and mischief, who hung on his every word and who showed affection through subtle touches and big smiles and kind words, gifts and compliments and compassion. He looked so happy, surrounded by these new people who looked at him like he was the light in their dark world, and he stood so proudly, his head held high, a bemused smile constantly on his face. She didn’t think that he would be coming back, and would make them stay home to take care of the temple and the graves. It was his job, to stay behind while the others adventured, but now that he’d gotten a taste, he probably wouldn’t be coming back. Not soon, at least. 

How could they compete with that? How could she? With a hot monk covered in bruises and blood and a dirty wizard with a monkey hanging from his shoulder and a little goblin girl with big teeth and a cute blue tiefling with a wonderful smile and a half-orc with the last name Stone with apparently no relation and an intimidatingly tall woman who didn’t know how to hold herself under such scrutiny, how could Colliope ever expect to compete with that? Calliope had never seen him smile like that, not around them, not back home. How could she pull him away from that? He deserved it more than anyone did. He was alone for ten years, he deserved to be surrounded by friendship and love after all that time of living alone and interacting with nobody but the dead and the bugs.

Ten years. She still couldn’t believe it. Ten years weren’t a long time in terms of the firbolg lifespan, but it was a long time for her. Ten years. It was all she could think about. Ten years, ten years, ten years.

But then she was overwhelmed by cold water that snatched the air from her lungs as Cadcueus’s bone flute made her jump so hard she slipped off the edge of the pool, and all she could hear was her rapid heartbeat pounding in her ears and the sound of her brothers booming laughing from above her, muffled and warped by the water, the only thing she could think about was how she was going to get him back for that and couldn’t help but wonder if even after ten years, maybe things weren’t so totally different between them after all. 


End file.
